Pages

Friday, January 28, 2005

Reasons to go to Oklahoma (or not)

I have some relatives in Oklahoma who I haven't visited in probably close to a decade. You've got the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, and not much beyond that. Although they're great people, I'm sure part of the reason I don't visit my uncle and cousins is there's just nothing to do there. Or so I thought.

USA Today reports on a State Senator trying to make cockfighting more palatable by giving the warrior fowl boxing gloves and other padding to protect them. I've always had a weird fascination with the sport (although I don't condone it), probably tied to my general amusement of all things chicken-related.

And Heavener, Oklahoma offers up supposed proof that the vikings made it all the way down to what we now call Middle America. I'll admit, it's an intriguing idea thinking they made it all that way. Kind of fun thinking of all those big, burly guys with horned helmets trading and partying with the Native Americans in the area. We know the Vikings probably made it to Newfoundland, Canada but Oklahoma is quite a boatride from there. In fact, it seems like a pretty strange spot for a seafaring culture to end up, but who knows. All I know is that I'm tired enough after a two hour plane ride to Oklahoma, much less a hike several weeks long from the east coast.

5 comments:

Cockfighting... it's so weird. But the chickens dressed up would be pretty entertaining. I guess they wouldn't really be able to talk trash, would they?

Did you like Subservient Chicken, if chicken-related things appeal to you? (One of the weirdest marketing campaigns ever.) Speaking of, I like that Burger King commercial where the two chickens are fighting in the ring, they say that no chickens were harmed in the making of the ad, even though they show a chicken sandwich. I immediately thought, "uh, that chicken in that sandwich wasn't exactly comfortable!"

Vikings all that way? Sounds so odd. I know little of Vikings except in my college, there was a really ridiculous drinking game called Viking -- ever heard of it? I always sort of suspected one of my weird friends just made it up (like what was known as The Stick Game, also a ridiculous way to drink), but one never knows.

I love Subservient Chicken. Always good for a cheap chuckle. I'm not sure when it started for me. The first time I remember really, really laughing at chickens was at a Saturday Night Live sketch. It was a Mike Meyer's bit, and they were making fun of German Art Films. Ultra serious, but every few seconds it had a weird, quick, non-sensical cut to a chicken. I also worked at a chicken plant for a few months in college. Go Wampler!

Once you get past flagons and flagons of spilled ale and the constant shouting of words like "Valhalla" Vikings are fun. I like the mythology a lot.

Pretty gross, yeah. I went through 3 pairs of leather boots over a semester. And I was part-time. I didn't go through them by wearing out the souls, but from the biological goo from the chickens eating and rotting away the leather. Quite smelly, too.

About Me

"It's strange," Hebdomeros was thinking, "as for me, the very idea that something had escaped my understanding would keep me awake at nights, whereas people in general are not in the least perturbed when they see or read or hear things they find completely obscure".